Bitcoin price weekly analysis – 7.1.2018

The first week of 2019 witnessed a stability of bitcoin markets. Bitcoin price has been moving sideways during most of last week’s trading sessions, as it ranged between $3,771 and $4,083. The week started by bitcoin price dropping down to a week low of $3,771 on Monday. Then, it began rising steadily reaching a week high of $4,083 on Wednesday, after which it started declining again gradually down to $3,850 on Friday. This sideways movement continued throughout the rest of the week’s trading sessions, with no strong momentum towards the bearish or the bullish directions.

Bitcoin price and the news:

In spite of the massive decline in price and market capitalization that bitcoin witnessed in 2018, a recent report showed that around 10 million more Bitcoin wallets were created in 2018, as compared to the year 2017.

Last week, ethereum successfully regained the second position, on the list of cryptocurrency market capitalization, from ripple which had occupied it since last November. Ethereum is now the second biggest cryptocurrency, with a total market capitalization of $15,887,767,854, at the time of writing of this analysis.

The Estonia headquartered DXExchange has announced last week that it is planning to utilize the blockchain technology in the trading of securities, via launching a trading platform for tokenized stocks. The exchange is planning to offer tokenized stock of 10 Nasdaq listed companies and will soon also add stock of those listed on Wall Street.

Two of the world’s top bitcoin exchanges, OKEx and Huobi, are planning to support the much anticipated Ethereum hard fork, Constantinople, which is expected to take place between January 14th and 18th. Binance has also announced that it is going to support this hard fork.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, has made it to Worth.com’s list of global top 100 financial leaders last week. Nakamoto was placed at the 44th position on the list, to become the only anonymous entity on the list.

Indecisiveness on the 1 day BTCUSD chart:

Let’s examine the 1 day BTCUSD chart from Bitfinex, while plotting the Ichimoku Cloud and the MACD indicator. We will also keep the Fibonacci retracements we plotted during last week’s bitcoin price analysis, which extend between the high recorded on October 15th, 2018 ($7,788) and the low recorded on December 15th, 2018 ($3,215.2), as shown on the below chart. We can note the following:

– Bitcoin price movements reflected an indecisive market during last week’s trading sessions. This is evidenced by the alternating bullish and bearish candlesticks throughout most of the week days. A trading range of around $300 could be spotted throughout the week. A week low of $3,771 was recorded in the beginning of the week. The week high was recorded on Wednesday ($4,083). The market was way below the target resistance around $4,290.7, which corresponds to the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement. However, the market was at least $400-$500 above the nearest support level around $3,215.2.

– The indecisiveness of the market is also reflected by the Ichimoku Cloud, as the cloud is still red in color which represents a bearish sign. However, the Conversion line (blue) has crossed above the Base line (red), which represents a bullish signal. Last Wednesday, bitcoin price rose above the cloud’s Base line, which represents another bullish signal. Most likely, bitcoin price will start moving towards the next resistance level around $4,290.7 (23.6% Fibonacci retracement) during the upcoming week, as evidenced by recovery of the Ichimoku Cloud’s indicators.

– The MACD indicator is bullish, despite the sideways movement of bitcoin price. The MACD blue line is above the red signal line and both are moving towards the positive territory.

Bitcoin price oscillating between the Bollinger bands on the 4 hour BTCUSD chart:

Let’s examine the 4 hour BTCUSD chart from Bitfinex, while plotting the Bollinger Bands, RSI, and the Williams Alligator’s SMAs, as shown on the below chart. We can note the following:

– The sideways movement of bitcoin price can be shown by repeated cycles of candlesticks oscillating between the upper and lower Bollinger Bands. At the time of writing of this analysis, candlesticks are near the lower Bollinger band, so we are likely to see bitcoin price move towards the upwards direction during the upcoming 48 hours.

– The SMAs of Williams Alligator have just formed a bullish alignment, so we can say that the alligator has opened its mouth and is ready to “eat” in the bullish direction. This is supported by the RSI which values around 45, so bitcoin is not overbought yet at the current level.

Conclusion:

Bitcoin price has been moving sideways during most of last week, which reflects indecisiveness of the market. Our technical analysis shows that bitcoin price will most likely start rising during the upcoming week to attempt testing the resistance around $4,290.7 (23.6% Fibonacci retracement).